We do not view the company itself as the ultimate owner of our business assets but instead view the company as a conduit through which our shareholders own assets.

At age 19, I read a book [The Intelligent Investor] and what I'm doing today, at age 76, is running things through the same thought process I learned from the book I read at 19.

You will be right, over the course of many transactions, if your hypotheses are correct, your facts are correct, and your reasoning is correct. True conservatism is only possible through knowledge and reason.

Does management resist the institutional imperative?

A CEO's behavior has a huge impact on managers down the line.

Confidence in markets and in institutions, it's a lot like oxygen. When you have it, you don't even think about it. It's indispensable. You can go years without thinking about it. When it's gone for five minutes, it's the only thing to think about.

I don't really think that, as a society, we [americans] want to confer blessings on generation after generation who contribute nothing to society, simply because somebody in the far distant past happened to amass a great sum of wealth.